ROY HARRIS. SYMPHONY Nº6 "GETTYSBURG". CLARCK

[@PhilippeBrun-qy3st]

Avec les 3 et 4 ...une de mes préférées la n 6 Gettysburg... le final à 4.30'de la fin est prodigieux. Roy Harris, il est bon de dire son nom.Merci encore.

[@Julz777]

Amazing stuff - Harris redefines tonality and, in doing so, packs an emotional punch

[@hayden1188]

The first movement is one of my favourites of all symphonies. It evokes (for me) a scene of the sun, struggling through dank mist at dawn and slowly rising to finally break free in triumph and illuminating the landscape with glorious light. The first movement never fails to inspire and uplift me. I wonder how Harris felt when he composed it...?

[@chuckrivers]

It's a favorite of mine also!

[@DrexelRingbloom]

The first movement is ethereal

[@arssonora882]

Thank you David, I suppose the photography has nothing to do with the music, the symphony is wonderful and the photography is very powerful, they can be seen separately

[@edwardprice1056]

Harris and Bruckner, that's quite a pairing! But a good one. A friend of mine whose tastes get closer to the wire, as it were, tried to get me into Roy Harris many years ago. My tastes have gone rather more acidic as the years have passed, so coming back to Harris now, I quite like what I hear. Will check out the other later symphonies.

[@rogermaes6001]

Roy Harris seems to be repeating himself, not quite sure where he is going, citing himself perhaps with some complacency, so many critics have said, but for me his orchestral works form like a long and continuous work, almost in one piece, at least intimately linked to each other ... Harris's music is always the same and always surprising. In a way, as if Penelope had never undone at night what she had woven during the day, and had continued the same work endlessly, constantly renewing her tapestry. Harris seeks, finds, keeps looking, seems to be waiting for something or someone; symphonies after symphonies, he weaves a long road, an infinite perspective, it may seem unfinished, but like us, like life, and personally I like the wait in his company.

[@ogredad55]

I LOVE Roy Harris's music and I'm a high school dropout. I've never been academically inclined. In fact - I've failed miserably to reach my potential (Whatever that is) Many people tell me how smart I am. But I just don't C it! I never place a period after parenthetical frases......And - I don' spel two good ether! (Well - Use Right Guard then, pal)! - PS: This is one Incredible Piece of Classical Music!

[@grahamexeter3399]

One thing I love about Incredible Pieces of Classical Music is that they don't give a damn about spelling. Somehow they transcend it and remain incredible!

[@johnllewlyndavies222]

The trouble with getting to the top of Everest is, it tapers to a point and there isn't any more. You just have to go down again.

[@marcparella]

Would you trade your appreciation for great music like this for some meaningless academic honor?

[@martinlee5604]

I have been using the lockdown to acquaint myself with all the numbered symphonies of different composers picked in pairs at random: Prokofiev/Rachmaninov; Ives/Saint-Saens; Dvorak/Spohr; and currently Bruckner/Harris. The latter pairing has been quite a challenge! I have found the music of Harris to be excellent in many ways, and I'm looking forward to hearing the higher-numbered symphonies.

[@hectorbarrionuevo6034]

What an amazing work by Harris ... dat harmony ... is so consistently lush and beautiful ... Harris paints magnificent, static vistas !

[@andylong5065]

Excellent! This symphony was virtually impossible to find when I first discovered Roy Harris about 30 years ago. He was once dismissed as a "one-hit wonder", who, having been the first to nail the American orchestral sound with his tremendous 3rd symphony, lapsed into self-parody. I disagree and am pleased to see more of his stuff becoming available, though you still struggle to find people who've heard of him, especially here in the UK.

[@grahamexeter3399]

Why would one composer who writes in a consistent style be congratulated on having 'found his own voice', and another, having found his or hers, be accused of self-parody? As Doris Lessing said, "Critics really can be unspeakably stupid sometimes!" Meanwhile, this symphony just gets on with being superb...

[@MREmusique]

and yet I hear a definite evolution of the materials he used in the 3rd symphony. I absolutely love this symphony, I'm only just getting back into listening to early-mid 20th century American composers.

[@henrygingercat]

I agree. His 3rd has been a favourite for over 40 years but now one has the opportunity of hearing more of his work it stacks up very well.

[@rogermaes6001]

​@@grahamexeter3399 I agree with you. "Having found his own voice", as you say, and a voice so personal that it is immediately identifiable, makes Roy Harris a rather exceptional composer for the 20th century, both in rank and apart from other great symphonists, like William Schuman, William Walton, Samuel Barber, Leonard Bernstein, Walter Piston ... (non-exhaustive list).

[@DrexelRingbloom]

Harris did his best work up to the 1950’s. His sym #7 is his last good symphony. After that it was a repeat of his earlier successes. That doesn’t mean it isn’t worth listening to. Harris has his own unique sound and even in his later works there are kernels of originality

[@daviddickson2228]

Interesting choice of visual. The symphony was written at the height of national patriotic fervor in 1944; those structures look vaguely NASA-ish. Similar theme, I suppose.

[@truBador2]

Roy Harris.

[@davidchristopherlaterre8723]

the second mov't is called 'Dedication'

[@12corners]

Fabulous

[@DavidDavid-cv9sg]

A very strong and stirring piece indeed - I think Harris’ best after the celebrated 3rd. The Alsop recording is totally underwhelming, I feel, compared to Clark’s, which has glorious sound and real punch.

[@rogermaes6001]

Agree with you. This is the general defect of Alsop's recordings: a lot of craftsmanship, but too many scruples, a kind of shyness that prevents her from bringing the work to life. 😉

[@grahamexeter3399]

This is a fabulous discovery! Thanks so much for the upload! From 13:47 to 14:57 sounds prophetic to me, very much like some of the neoconservative music being composed today. It inhabits a similar elegiac world to some of the works by composers like Max Richter, though, of course, it's pure Harris. The entire work is extraordinary.

[@johannesortmann2789]

Indeed. This part sounds a bit like Arvo Paerts "Tabula rasa"

[@johnhunter1198]

What is the name of the photo?

[@genedryer-bivins8314]

Please, who is performing?

[@davidhanig2058]

Keith Clark, conducting the Pacific Symphony Orchestra.

[@erickunze6432]

i think this is Keith Clark and the Pacific SO, the first recording of this pinnacle of American mysticism that I heard. A truly outstanding work that should be on every symphony orchestra's card.

[@jgesselberty]

Not getting the connection between the music and the picture. There are so many images of Gettysburg, itself, that would be more appropriate.

[@arssonora882]

Normally I do not look for any relationship between the image and the music, but thanks for the suggestion

[@Scott-zm3ip]

Lovely piece, but they're playing very out of tune at the beginning. The recording with Marin Alsop is better.

[@MattST69]

Alsop version is truly pathetic compared to this